This is the question Italians should ask themselves as they contemplate an otherwise uncertain future.

Bologna, home of the oldest University in the world, is emblematic of this juncture. The University of Bologna is the flagship of Italian higher education, rated the best in Italy, but ironically this is the limit of her reach. The University’s reputation has faded over the centuries, and today the University’s prestige is hardly recognized beyond the borders of the Italian peninsula. The worldwide authority, Times Higher Education – a sort of Standard & Poors of the Education economy – in its latest ranking put Bologna and other top Italian Universities in the range between 226th and 250th place. The review, its latest iteration spanning 2010 to 2012, is Anglo-American oriented, with 11 of the top 14 Universities listed being American; the other three are British. The three main criteria at the heart of the ranking are teaching, research, citation: quality of the learning environment, support of innovation, and influence exerted on intellectual advancement outside the university. The results of the THE review are corroborated by other studies, and it makes sense that English-speaking Universities are in a better position to have their work quoted by different scholars, but ahead of Bologna we also find 20 Asian universities. Three are in Mainland China, four in Hong Kong, and the other 13 spread around eastern Asia. Bologna has not only fallen away from the top 200, she is not even placed well among the “best of the rest.”

Alarm bells should be ringing by now in Italy, and the right kind of reaction would be to make a plan and take action, in that order. The worst possible outcome would be to discount the ranking, stick to tradition, and resist evolution because it is too risky and competitive. Unfortunately, this conservative position still prevails in the city and in its academic circles. Excellence in teaching, like all other things, is subject to wither. It needs to be fostered by funds to guarantee research, scholarships, and publications. Last year, Harvard University wielded $26 billion (US) in private financing, the kind of money that ensures academic quality and intellectual freedom to the highest degree. Without proper funding, the celebration of the past becomes a shelter, an excuse to perpetuate a declining superiority. To climb the ladder of world ranking, the University needs to attract the world’s most talented professors and prestigious students, which in turn drives up enrollment and registration fees, a lucrative cycle that rewards investment with profit and credibility.

The case of Chinese students in Bologna is illuminating. No other Italian institute of higher education has as many of them as Bologna, but their number is still marginal. They are often criticized for their difficulties in picking up the Italian language and for keeping stubbornly to the fundamentals of their culture, but in the other universities of the world their results are better than those in Italy. The 500,000 Chinese students hard at work in foreign schools are appreciated for their commitment, discipline, and achievements. Their predisposition for systematic application leads to excellence in the scientific fields- a product of their cultural background.

Italians should question their own analysis, rather than the Chinese, to understand what is happening to Italian universities. Will Chinese students always dream of coming to study in Italy, in Bologna? The best Chinese students’ greatest ambition is to attend the top universities in China, not abroad. Graduating from Shanghai or Beijing ensures gainful employment and social respectability. If they do intend to study abroad, they would rather choose institutions where courses are taught in English, scientific research is properly funded, and possible publications are more likely to be valued by peers.

Could it be that when the Chinese students disappoint us, it is because we were unable to attract the cream of the crop? Are we under the illusion that they still consider Italy a prestigious destination for higher learning, that Italy still has the draw for intellectual talent that it once did? A little humility will go a long way, as will a broadening of horizons. The danger is otherwise to celebrate our own decline, convinced that the world still revolves around us. Being “Bolognesi” might be a matter of pride, and stardust can be a good place from which to start over, but not when we are still floundering in the sands of time.

Unless things change here in Italy between now and when my children reach university age, there is little chance of my sending them to higher education in Italy. Given that I love this country I don’t think there is any worse I can say. I sincerely hope that the most educated in Italy are illuminated enough and interested enough to learn from their colleagues aroud the world.

Trade Agreements & Globalization have impacted the universities world wide, turning them into a sort of corporate franchise. The university, the former institution of higher learning, becomes a money-making organization which competes against other universities in: fund raising; corporate & government ties; ranking; recruitment of students & “staff” (a.k.a. professors); research & High Visibility in all realms of power (Science, High Tech, Media, Military, World Government); and, finally, preparing students —not so much critical thinkers but— as a new world-class of educational managers who will in turn have a vested interest in promoting the university through all their corporative & governmental connections. Sometimes, this power-thrust is taken too far: competitiveness couples with a bottom-line mentality (profit fir$t) and, as result, the university becomes a de facto appendix of corporations (i.e. for research purposes, as in the case of UCLA and other big sub-contractors of the Pentagon and Big Pharma). This trend is observable not just in those universities that embody the extreme cases of power, fund raising and competitiveness (Harvard under Larry Summers of the US Treasury Secretary), but it is observable in the most prominent universities around the globe, even the Pontificial universities (i.e. Chile). Given the “success”, in terms of money and prestige, of this new paradign in academia, we should look for its mouthpiece. In comes the ad-hoc media to provide an academic “index” of “the top 100 best universities & colleges” —the Alma Mater’s Standard & Poor, with all its baggage including poor standards. Increasingly, these indexes are produced in the Anglo realm of influence and econopolitical power: 1. the USA; 2. the U.K.+former colonies (Hong Kong and Singapore).
This Anglo-Asian Axis of Education promotes Commercial Skills in two main forms: Financial and Managerial Skills, plus Media and Soft Power skills (Personal Relations, Marketing), and, implied in both of them, a high command of High Tech. This commercial approach of Academia determines the standardization of the university “values”. In its most picturesque aspect it has a U.K. university award to Donald Trump an honorary doctorate for making money & building a golf course in Scottland. “The main rivals in the international higher education rankings business went head to head last week to launch league tables of the world’s top newer universities”, says University World News, a main University Index producer, an Anglo venue.
Under this new standarization of world universities, it is tough for the European universities of the Plan Bologna to compete with Anglo-Asian universities, specially as it pertains to Chinese and Far East students, that is: attracting them, graduating them and retaining them for job-related research activities. These Asian students prefer Anglo-Asian universities because through them they have the highest chance of fulfilling their personal and professional aspirations within a bicontinental way: i.e. job in China, family home in the US, or viceversa. The Continental European universities which want to survive the model provided by the Anglo-Asian periphery should modify the Anglo-Asian Commercial model to serve their own idiosincrasies and goals. Verbal skills and critical thinking through Legal training (International Law, Trade Agreements, Copyright Infringement, etc), are a strong point in which few world class universities could compete with Bologna. And of course, Bologna now has in Osservatorio Asia a team of expert to make the new university model richer and more relevant to Asian students. By working alongside with the Pontificial universities in Latin America and Europe, Bologna could open up for Asian students an exciting, amenable, instructive and valuable alternative to the Anglo-Asian model of university-as-market.

Good day! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I truly enjoy reading your articles. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same subjects? Thanks a lot!

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About Alberto

Alberto Forchielli, born in 1955, received an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s cum laude in Economics from the University of Bologna. He is a founding partner of Mandarin Capital Partners, and the founder and president of Osservatorio Asia, a non-profit research center focused on Asia. He is also the founder of T-Island, a consultancy agency specialized in international relocations for professionals. In addition, he guided the expansion of the Roland Berger Foundation to Italy, which provides individual support for talented students lacking means to further their educations.